In Sharpeville, Black Rivals Contest Sluggish Vote

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''We must start building democracy from the foundation of local politics,'' Mr. Kolisang said. ''The Government has given blacks greater powers to govern themselves, but we haven't learned how to use them.'' Home Burned to Ground

Mr. Kolisang's home was razed in an attack by militant anti-apartheid youths known as comrades in September 1984, when Sharpeville and surrounding townships erupted in civil unrest.

Six blacks - five men and a woman known as the Sharpeville Six - now face the death penalty for their part in the mob killing of Jacob Dlamini, another black councilor from Sharpeville, in 1984.

Mr. Kolisang, an opposition councilor in the Lekoa Town Council, which represents Sharpeville and five other townships, still asserts that there is no point in blacks taking part in national politics until they have learned to use existing powers to lift themselves up.

''If I go to the central Parliament, I would be neglecting the foundations,'' he said. ''We have got to iron out our local problems first.''

But the vast majority of the 64,000 blacks in this neglected township of matchbox-like houses appeared uninterested in voting for councilors who they believe will have no real power to influence the white-dominated Government in Pretoria. Calls Government Sincere

Mr. Kolisang says he believes that the Government is sincere in wanting to gradually extend democracy to blacks and vows he will do everything in his power to ''tackle the Government on the real issues.''

Although most Sharpeville residents still heed a three-year-old rent boycott, Mr. Kolisang's modest style of consultation has persuaded most of them to pay the basic rent they were paying before rent increases in 1984.

''No candidate can promise that they can reinstate the old rate, but this is what the community demands, and we will take it to the Government,'' he said.

Government officials have said elected black councilors will be organized into electoral colleges to choose candidates for a multiracial national council, where further political rights for blacks will be negotiated.

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Mr. Kolisang said in an interview outside the polling station that the authorities must release all political detainees and scrap all apartheid laws before such a negotiating forum could serve any purpose.

Mr. Kolisang is the leader of the Vaal Residents Representative Party, which holds only 4 seats in the 44-seat Lekoa Town Council. Rival Was Botha's Host

But he says he is confident that he will wrest control from the Lekoa People's Party of Esau Mahlatsi, the Mayor of Lekoa, who was host to President P. W. Botha on his much-publicized visit to the area last year.

Mr. Kolisang condemns Mr. Mahlatsi for his ''arrogance'' and inability to communicate with the community.

Standing near a white and red umbrella where his helpers had marked off only 60 voters in the first six hours of voting, Mr. Kolisang said he was confident that life for blacks would improve after the election today.

Although the country's rigid laws enforcing residential segregation insure that local councils remain segregated too, the election is the first in which whites and blacks have voted simultaneously.

In an effort to undermine the effect of an election boycott by anti-apartheid groups, the Government allowed 13 days of early voting before today's balloting.

Official statistics assert that 19.3 percent of registered black voters in contested wards had voted by the end of the 13 days. Deserted Polling Stations

Judging from the deserted polling stations in townships today, it appeared that the total vote in black areas would not rise much above 20 percent.

But this figure is only 11 percent of all registered voters and 9 percent of eligible black voters in urban areas.

In 1983 some 21 percent of all registered black voters cast their ballots in the first elections for revamped black local councils.

But Mr. Kolisang said he was not unduly worried by the low percentage turnout of voters.

''Once we show the voters that we are able to meet the people's demands, more people will take part in the election next time,'' he said, glancing over his shoulder at the deserted voting table.

A version of this article appears in print on October 27, 1988, on Page A00012 of the National edition with the headline: In Sharpeville, Black Rivals Contest Sluggish Vote. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe